Our Culture is Captivated by Rebellion

March 30, 2022

What is going on? Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson is asked, “What Is a Woman?” She not only can’t answer the question, but then defers to trained biologists. Richard Levine now identifies as a woman and goes by the name Rachel Levine and serves as our nation’s Assistant Secretary for Health. Will Thomas now identifies as a woman and goes by the name Lia Thomas and he easily wins against the women’s field in the NCAA Swimming Championships. The Disney Company commits five million dollars to fight Florida Governor DeSantis’ plan to protect K-4th graders from being taught gender ideology that children don’t need to be exposed to at this age. What is going on?

I don’t believe Nominee Brown Jackson does not know what a woman is. At another point in her testimony she agreed that she is a woman. I believe all this gender dysphoria grows out of the common human problem of rebellion. Teenagers desire to rebel against authority is well documented. Raising four children I witnessed lots of rebellion. As a pastor I see plenty of rebellion among Christians as well.

In trying to explain the gender confusion exhibited by the people in the opening paragraph I want to offer that at its foundation is rebellion as well: rebellion against God. There are few things that go to the heart of the way God has created this world than to create His most precious creation, humanity, as two distinct sexes. We read in Genesis 1:27, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Further, God has a plan for us, male and female. We read in Genesis 2:24, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

There are a number of ways we rebel against God. I think it is very important that my Christian audience realize I am talking to you right now. One way is to go against God’s will and against God’s word and therefore reject God and His word as authoritative over our lives. Christians have a tendency to use their faith in God as a protective shield against the world so that when God is calling them into a hurting world they don’t hear His voice. Many Christians also play loose with the truth of scripture, and pick and choose the parts they think are authoritative and ignore the rest. It is easy to fall into these rebellious traps. To avoid them you decide that you want to know God’s will and understand God’s word, and then do the hard work of learning how to discern God’s will and understand His word.

Another way we rebel against God is to allow arrogance to grow in our lives. Once example of this is to sin over and over again. God will never stop forgiving us of our sins, but He also places resources before us to have the victory over our sins. When we get comfortable with sexual sins, addictive sins, and/or abusive sins, making excuses for them in our lives, then there will be consequences we will have to pay. That arrogant, rebellious attitude will separate us from God and His plan for our lives.

The Bible is full of examples of people who had great victories in the Lord, then rebelled against God and their faith burned out like a dead ember on a fireplace hearth. Gideon let God use him and 300 other crazy believers to win an improbable victory over 135,000 Midianites. The fame this brought Gideon only led him to use it for his own prideful glory and gain. King David had victories over the giant Goliath and many others. But his sexual impurity was crippling to his kingship and the nation of Israel. Paul encourages us not to start out strong only to fall into rebellious failure before the Lord. He writes in I Corinthians 9:24, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.”

Do you find cultural questions about gender, sexuality, and purity to be confusing? Where do you turn for answers you can trust? Do you believe the Bible is God’s word? Can you find the answers you seek to these questions in the Bible?

When the culture around us is confused about what is true, what is pornography, what is a woman, when life begins, what is justice, and who is creator of the universe do not be swayed by cultural confusion. Hold on to your faith and finish the race strong!